Dealing with survivorship is well-known and readily appreciated by those of skill in the art. Typically, a policy holder (referred to herein as a “member”) may be a customer or otherwise have relationships with several different entities or agencies of a business such as, for example, a financial services company that may comprise various agencies, such as a property and casualty insurance agency, a life and health insurance agency, an investment services agency, a banking and credit services agency, a financial planning services agency, or other miscellaneous service entities. The various financial service agencies may comprise respective agencies, subsidiaries, or other divisions of a company, such as a financial services company, that provides an array of financial services. As referred to herein, an agency comprises an entity that provides a service and may issue an account (also referred to herein as a policy) to a member of the agency. A member may have one or more respective accounts, policies, or other relationships (collectively referred to herein simply as “accounts”) with one or more of the agencies. In the event of the member's death, the member's accounts must be settled or closed. Settlement of the member's various accounts may require supply of various information and review of various documents by the member's beneficiary, e.g., the member's next-of-kin or other survivor designee (referred to herein simply as “beneficiary”). Upon the death of a member, the beneficiary must deal with a number of issues to close or resolve any number of accounts the deceased member, or decedent, held.
Upon death of the member, the accounts issued by several different agencies must be resolved. Typically, the beneficiary will receive many different, individualized correspondences from the agencies requesting guidance on how the accounts are to be resolved. This may result in the beneficiary being burdened with requisite reviews of large amounts of information and supply of information to the various agencies. Inasmuch as the various agencies may process accounts independently from other agencies, the beneficiary may receive duplicative information from various agencies and may likewise receive requests for duplicative information from various agencies. Additionally, the beneficiary is typically required to provide a signature to resolve each account. Moreover, the survivor may be required to interact with various personnel, or points of contact, that represent the various agencies with which the decedent held accounts. Resolution of the various accounts is typically burdensome, particularly considering the beneficiary may be distressed from the recent death of a family member or loved-one.
Such conventional methods of dealing with survivorship results in a burdensome and inefficient process for the survivor. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide mechanisms for easing the burden of a survivor absent the disadvantages discussed above.